A teenage tearaway has been banned from his local shopping centre after a court heard how he terrorised store staff and customers.

The 14-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was excluded from the Allendale Shopping Precinct, on Middlesbrough's Spencerbeck estate, and the adjacent car park, for two years.

Teesside magistrates also ordered him to stop intimidating or harassing shop staff and customers and from drinking alcohol in public.

The restrictions on the boy were part of an anti-social behaviour order sought jointly by Redcar Council and Cleveland Police. The boy did not contest the making of the order.

Solicitor Andrew Dobson, acting for the police and the council, told the court the application was based on the evidence of 11 people, mostly shop staff or police officers who had dealt with incidents involving the boy.

He said his behaviour involved regularly shouting foul-mouthed abuse at shop staff, making obscene suggestions to female shop assistants, throwing snowballs and an egg through shop doorways and kicking over a display stand.

Several of his escapades had been captured on CCTV, including one when he had urinated against the counter of Goojy's pizza shop while customers were waiting for their orders.

The boy's solicitor, David Dedman said the boy and his mother both accepted that his behaviour had been appalling and that the order was justified. The court heard she had taken him back to one shop to make him apologise.

But Mr Dedman said that was only one side of the story and he disputed some of the allegations made against the teenager, maintaining he had been blamed at times for the actions of others.

Mr Dedman said the boy was exceptionally intelligent but suffered from an attention deficit hyperactivity problem which affected his behaviour. He said that the boy's mother had done everything possible to kerb his bad behaviour.

After the hearing, PC Bryan Tams, of Cleveland Police local authority liaison department, said he and his colleagues were "delighted" the order had been granted.

"The 11 people who were prepared to give evidence were just a few of the people of the lives he made a misery but who were too frightened to come to court.

"There were some people who simply gave up work in the shops there because they could not take it any more and some of the local people were too frightened to come to court in case they made matters worse for themselves."